reply to post by 8eightup
First and foremost, I want to commend you on a thorough reply. While we disagree still (I'll get to that in a minute), I can admire and appreciate
someone who takes the time to search for information in support of their thesis. If I were a moderator I would applaud you for the above replies, even
though I disagree with the conclusion.
Second, the spread and growth of archetypes among mythology and the world's pantheons. I agree with this theory, to an extent. For massively
important figures, like the Creator, I most certainly recognize the evolution from Sumer (with Enlil and Enki) into Mesopotamia at large (with El and
Ea), then north into the Semitic lands (with Il, then the many Ba'als), and so on into Anatolia, Greece (Zeus), and possibly even the Norse with
I do not believe that this theory applies to every culture equally though, unless you discard the written mythology of the people. The mythology of
the people is the only testament we have concerning how the native cultures viewed their deities and divine creatures. On that note, it is easy to say
"any harvest-god is really just one god appearing under many faces" if you ignore the myths and stories the people told concerning them.
I do not ignore the mythology.
The hermaphroditic element of the harvest-god is Greek in origin, arising with the Kybele mythology as it migrated from Anatolia to mainland Greece.
The eunuchs of Kybele, who honored the fallen harvest-god Attis, were known to castrate themselves in rite and ritual. This is where the
hermaphroditic element of the harvest-god mythology comes in.
What the quotes you've presented are doing, is assuming that everything the later cultures believed, was also believed by the earlier cultures. That
is simply not true. The earliest rites of Kybele and Attis shared commonalities with Ishtar and Thammuz, and were representative of the withering of
the crops in winter, and their return in summer.
The reason why Kybele's rites were so strange according to Greek scholarship is because the Greeks (and especially the Romans after them) treated any
foreign worship or practice (which Kybele was) with disdain. Kybele's worship became a joke, an abstraction, and detestable because she was not
native to the Greek mainland.
I wanted to write a small something about your quote concerning the bearded Ishtar. First and foremost, the "beards" of the Mesopotamian gods were
equally "beards" as they were ceremonial garments. However, the deity you're referring to is actually known as Ashtart, a semitic variation of
Ashtart was syncretized with the deity Athtar because both of them were representative of Venus. Ashtart was a female goddess, Athtar a male god.
Interestingly enough, the bearded version of Ashtart is referred to in inscription and text as "Ashtar", lacking the "t" which denotes femininity.
The "bearded Ishtar" may be nothing more than the male representation of Venus, Athtar, and not Ishtar at all.
If you look at, and say, "harvest-god", then ignore the mythology, which tells you how the cultures viewed that god, then yes, you can say Ninurta
was a hermaphrodite, and is the same as all other harvest-gods across the entire planet.
If you read the mythology, and come to an understanding of how the people viewed the particular god, then you will quickly see that Nisaba, Haia,
Ninurta, Ashnan, and Inanna are not the same deity, are not hermaphroditic representations, but are instead representations of various different grain
and harvest related functions.
From there it is easy to undo the supposed chain.
Ninurta, for example, did not carry a hammer. He carried a mace. The quote you posted has misidentified Sharur as Mjolnir. The mace was not used in
harvest duties either, but was used to slay monsters and fend off demons. There is no text available in which Ninurta uses Sharur --- or a hammer ---
in a harvest-related duty.
Further, Ninurta did not partake in any of the myths which Cronus did (swallowing children, castrating his father, etc). In fact, Ninurta had no
children, and was devoutly loyal to his father, Enlil. If you never read the myths, then you will never know that one harvest-god (Cronus) committed
both patricide and infanticide, while the other did not. A very big disparity between the two.
If you do read the mythology though, you'll notice that Enki has a myth where he swallows his children, and doing so sickens him and causes him to
become too weak to rule. You'll notice that the Anatolian deity Tarhunt castrates his father, Kumarbi, to secure kingship of the pantheon. The
difference? Enki is a god of wisdom, crafting, and magic. Tarhunt is a mountain god who rules over storms.
~ Wandering Scribe